As an addendum to a note previously posted by my colleague Orin Langelle regarding his Formal Complaint Against UN Security, I would add: upon arriving at the scene described in that post, I was similarly accosted. When I moved to photograph the interaction between UN Security and Mr. Langelle, I was similarly threatened with removal from the grounds. I was told to erase any photographs taken up to that point, or risk having my camera confiscated.

I showed the unidentified Security officer my badge, and asked him to take note of the fact that, like Langelle, I held formal UN press accreditation, and was simply doing my job. I then informed him that I would take no more pictures, but would stand by to take notes until the problem was resolved — upon which he again threatened me with expulsion.

“On what grounds?” I asked

“I know how you journalists work,” the unnamed UN Security Officer said. “Tomorrow you’ll publish something about this in the newspaper.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re going to eject me from the conference on the basis that I might publish something in the newspaper tomorrow? That seems to me to be a serious breach of any kind of freedom of the press.”